Posted on 03/07/2007 4:32:54 AM PST by Verax
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John Bender
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| Rudy Giuliani can’t win the general election. No matter how much some people in the Republican Party wish he could, he can’t and here’s why. There is about 30% of the voting public in each camp who vote for the party no matter what. The Republicans have so-called conservatives who would vote for Arlen Specter rather than Thomas Jefferson, because Specter is a Republican and Jefferson was a Democrat. On the Democrat side, they have a group who would vote for Zell Miller rather than Lincoln Chafee, because Miller is a Democrat and Chafee is a Republican. Neither of these groups have any political clout in the general election. They are irrelevant to the political debate. Neither party, nor any politician, has to work to get their vote. Consequently, their issues are of no concern to either party. The battle in every election is to get out the vote of people who lean toward a party or candidate, and to get the vote of issue voters. The 40% or so of voters who either switch their vote from party to party, or who withhold their vote, when dissatisfied, are the ones politicians have to court and motivate in any general election. Neither the unmovable Republicans nor the unmovable Democrats are of any real interest to the respective parties. Those votes are there and counted before the polls ever open. The parties and individual politicians fight for and court the other 40% of the voters. Rove knows this and spoke about it after the 2000 election and adjusted his campaign strategy in the 2004 election accordingly. In 2000 Evangelicals didn’t turn out in their customary numbers and almost cost Bush the election. Rove was determined to change that and said so more than once between 2000 and 2004. In 2004, Rove made it a point to go after the Evangelical vote, including an unprecedented heavy Republican push in the nation’s Black churches. Evangelicals and other Christians responded by getting out and voting for Bush. This included a record 16% of the Black vote in Ohio, just about all of which came from the Black churches because of social issues like abortion, gay marriage, etc. That 16% of the Black vote was not only almost double the percentage of Black votes the Republican historically gets in presidential elections, it was more than double the Black vote Bush got in Ohio in 2000. The increase was also more than Bush’s margin of victory in Ohio. It gave him the election. Without the Black vote Bush would have lost Ohio and its 20 Electoral votes. Take those twenty votes from Bush and give them to Kerry and you have President Kerry no matter how Florida voted. In fact, remove the increase in the Evangelical turnout nationally; and it is impossible for Bush to have won a second term. Rove worked on pushing those issues that motivate Evangelicals and it gave Bush a second term. If the party again removes the Evangelicals who stayed home in 2000, PLUS some of the other social conservatives, some of the Second Amendment voters, and some of the defend the borders voters, there is no way one can come up with a GOP win in 2008. The party isn’t going to attract enough pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, pro-open borders, to offset the loss from the above mentioned groups. It just isn’t going to happen. Now, some in the 30% who are unmovable Republican voters are happy the party has moved to the Left and wish it would move a little farther Left. Others don’t like the slide to the Left, but are so locked into the party they will accept the slide, vote a straight ticket and hope for a better candidate in the next election. Those in the second category, they’d like a more conservative candidate, but will vote for whoever gets the GOP nomination, are actually helping assure that they will never get what they want in a candidate. They are not helping get a more conservative candidate because they come right out and say they will vote for ANYBODY who the party nominates. They are making themselves irrelevant. Why should the party try to please them? They are going to vote for the party no matter what. They are telling the party to ignore them. The people who make the party earn their vote are the ones who can push the party back to the Right. They are the ones that the politicians have to please. Don’t be fooled by the Republican establishment’s mantra that someone is too conservative to win. They said the same thing about Reagan. Reagan twice showed that attracting social conservatives and fiscal conservatives produces landslide victories. The Republican establishment doesn’t like conservatives. They never liked Reagan. They didn’t want the people to believe he would win in the general election. In 1976 Ford’s Chief of Staff called Reaganites “right wing nuts”, a term that also pops up in several Ford internal campaign memos from that year. In 1980 Bush the Elder said Reagan was an extremist and that his economic policies were “voodoo economics” that could never work in the real world. None of this was true then and it isn’t true now. There are now four conservatives in the race for the Republican nomination; Rep. Ron Paul, Rep. Duncan Hunter, Governor Jim Gilmore, and Rep. Tom Tancredo. Any one of these gentlemen could beat Hillary or Obama in the general election. Giuliani can’t do it. The Rockefeller Republicans, who are the party bosses, and the Doubting Thomas Republicans who are pushing for Giuliani’s nomination are going to hand the election to the Democrats if they succeed in nominating Giuliani rather than a conservative. It’s up to the party’s base to stop that from happening. The only real choice for the anybody-but-a-Democrat voters is to work to make sure one of the conservatives gets the nomination or accept the fact that they helped put a Democrat in the White House in 08.
"Published originally at www.EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact." John Bender is a freelance writer living in Dallas, Texas. He is a past Ether Zone contributor. John Bender can be reached at: jbender@columnist.com |
Let's look at the powerful combinations of voting blocks that Ron Paul would be able to COMBINE in a new way for Republicans...
Obama vs Paul
Oppose War In IRAQ - 59% of the population
Tax/Monetary Reform - Libertarians & Fiscal conservatives
Immigration Reform - 70% of American public
Combat Veteran
Supports Legalization of Industrial Hemp
Gun Owners - Huge numbers
Opposes the Death Penalty & Pro Life - Catholic/Evangelical votes
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
The RINOs simply do not want to admit the United States is a conservative nation.
It really boils down to common sense and the voter. The entire Guiliani campaign is premised on the meme that the content of character can be seperated from the candidate.
Where have we heard that before?
When bill clinton was running for office and we were being told by the MSM character does not matter when it came to bill clinton's lying and affairs.
Can we have your best-case number, please?
Play the Electoral Vote 'game'. You can give Rudy every State that touches water on both coasts - Red and Blue - and he comes up SHORT.
Plus he's still behind Hillary in NY by 10%. No POTUS has ever lost his home state and won - except Al Gore (hahaha). Plus he's tied with the Beast in FL and is behind her in Ohio.
Rudy would give the RATS the biggest landslide since LBJ.
Tell me where I am wrong.
You're wrong in thinking that allowing the GOP to win with a liberal candidate will not affect the future. The only voters who have a voice in our government are the ones that make the politicians work to get their vote.
Wow, I hope the Republicans read this very carfully...
The SUPERSTAR savior of New York is 10 points behind carpet-bagging, trail-of-dead-white-house-staffers Hillary in HIS HOME STATE!!
Isn't this a Red Flag, especally after the last election?
The South is about as solidly Republican now as it had been solidly Democrat before 1960. Giuliani is the 2008 equivalent of the last New York City native to run for President: Al Smith. Al Smith was a "wet" Catholic facing the electorate in a "dry", mostly Protestant South and lost the Upper South states of NC, VA, and TN, the Border states of WV, KY, and MO. Rudoplph Giuliani is a socially liberal secularist in the socially conservative, and still mostly Protestant, South. His supporters are living in a fantasy world if they expect the evangelicals and the gun owners of the South to vote enthusiastically for him. His perceived toughness on foreign policy is the only strong point in the traditionally pro-military South. As with Smith 80 years ago, he may lose the Upper South and the Border States.
However, Giuliani may be able to offset the loss of these states by picking up much of the Northeast, PA, NH, DE, and NJ almost certainly and maybe his home state of NY, CT, and ME. The key to his election is CA, and his political profile is similar to that of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Thus sayeth the Czar of the Starvation Nation. "Spaceba Bolshoi," replied the DSA.
"The people who keep posting pictures of Rudy in drag want to McGovernize first the process, then the party."
Yea, those big meanies made Giuliette dress up in drag. Twice!
Sure, do you know how many gun owners there are in the south?? You probably think algore carried Tennessee don't you? Most of the ones that would vote for him for doing his cousin cannot read and don't vote. Oh, I'm southern and I can make that joke, it's a southern thang.
Ron Paul will take FAR MORE voters from the LEFT than HILLARY OR OBAMA will take from the RIGHT
It should be, but the rudybots, rudy rooters, rudyites, etc IGNORE that poll and push the one where he leads in NJ.
NY has 31 EVs, NJ has a measly 15, yet they pimp the 15. Go figure.
No southerner's gun is threatened by Giuliani and he's made that clear.
If Rudy gets the nomination, southern gun owners are going to say, "hmm, let's see. Rudy or Hillary?" or "Rudy or Obama?"
I know enough about southern gun owners to know how they'll answer that question.
If a democrat is elected, and a democrat Congress, abortions including late term abortions will be the order of the day.
So you can easily replace us with liberals and independents? Maybe, maybe not---but regardless, enjoy your NEW Party.
COLMES: Now, on abortion ? now, you are pro-choice, right?Hmmm... Anybody know what Rudy's "general outlook" might be?GIULIANI: Yes.
COLMES: You're a pro-choice Republican.
GIULIANI: I am.
[snip]
GIULIANI: Sure. That's be exactly the kind of person you'd think that you'd want to appoint, somebody who shares kind of your general outlook, but hasn't indicated and hasn't really predetermined most of the cases that are going to be determined by the court.
OH, that's right...
Tim Russert: "Whether it's gays in the military, gun control, campaign finance, late term abortion - you and Hillary Clinton are in sync on those issues."Rudy Giuliani: "Well then maybe the other side should stop the 'He's part of the vast right wing conspiracy'." http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1796268/posts?page=45#45
AMEN brother!
You believe that if Ron Paul were the nominee that in the general election that he would get 56 out of every hundred votes cast?
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